Momaday and Sears: Culture

A Story Tells it All

There seems to be a central theme to Sears’ book, Momaday’s book, and the various films we have reviewed, that there are old stories told about all of these "sacred places" that show us how to understand, care for, preserve, and protect the land around them. There are two aspects that stem from this main theme: that the words of these stories are traditional and sacred, and that people value different parts of the land in different ways. Some cultures value land as a worshiping center while others use it merely for entertainment and recreation. A problem comes into play when the culture’s views clash and the people don’t respect each other’s customs. When people don’t understand native’s points of view, they don’t understand how important their values are either.

Every one of the chapters in Momaday’s, The Way to Rainy Mountain, mentions how important it is to listen to the traditional stories to understand the land. One key story of how the people of Rainy Mountain inherited the land states, "Her [Aho] forebears came down from the high country in western Montana nearly three centuries ago. They were a mountain people, a mysterious tribe of hunters whose language has never been positively classified in any major group. In the late seventeenth century they began a long migration to the south and east"(6). This quote is also an example of how long American tourist attractions have been around and how they have become a part of people’s everyday life over time.

Another example of how important it is to listen to stories in order to understand the land is in The Way to Rainy Mountain when Momaday writes about how the storm spirit is so important to the Kiowa’s because it can understand their language while other people have a hard time understanding it. Momaday illustrates this point perfectly when he writes, "At times the plains are bright and calm and quiet; at times they are black with the sudden violence of weather. Always there are winds"(49). This quote shows the importance the wind plays in the culture of the Kiowa’s because it is so powerful and they can speak to the spirit of the storm and it will understand them anytime.

Momaday tells us a story of how the sun came to be. He writes about how a child becomes a woman and she becomes the wife of a man that has now become the sun.